Here is what I think. I think your life is so diminished by your living situation that you think your passive aggression is just you being scatterbrained even though while you were staying here I didn’t see any of that. I also didn’t see you dissociate and I didn’t tell you something that we did that you didn’t remember.

You know how you wished you had bought the cabinets from your picture but settled on the cheaper ones and after they were in you knew you had made the wrong choice? I think it may be time to get into a more peaceful living situation and not settle for what you have because it is too expensive.

You can put your stuff in storage here and stay at my place for a while like you did when you first came to California. Jerry is a kind of devil and you don’t need anymore lessons from living with him. He thinks I’m “rude and inconsiderate”. I know that is absolutely not true and you know it too. We both know that he was describing himself. He also is vested in being sick and will not do anything physically like eating better and quitting his addiction to soda which is what I think killed rick. And Jerry will not do anything “spiritual” to get better even though he professes to be “Christian”. Jerry’s Christ is Satan. He wants to be sick so he doesn’t have to take responsibility for his crappy behavior.

Your description of your dissociation is disturbing to me. I didn’t know it was so bad. I also think you don’t have to do it if you truly don’t want to. But in your current situation it is the way for you to take time outs. It is so negative there that you dissociate for almost any conscious reason but more probably for some unconscious reason. When it comes to your dissociation you sound just like Jerry. You put up with it and it is making your life hell. It’s victim-licious, meaning it’s a choice.

It’s time to divorce Jerry (whether you love him or not). You would be able to sell both houses, which would profit you considerably. Take that money, which is actually your inheritance, to get yourself into a more positive environment. I said sell both houses so you have no ties to Jerry at all. And don’t think about moving back to Watsonville where Jerry’s black aura lingers. I think God would help you to get the perfect job to help you financially. You are very good at organizing and that is a great skill. I was wowed by what you did for the welfare office organizing all the forms. You are not afraid of making mistakes either but I “know” this move would not be a mistake. It has been on my mind for quite a while.

I know it’s scary but it’s something to meditate on. Please think about doing this. I hate to see you this way. You were brave enough to confront dad. You are still just as brave as I witnessed your whole life. Even as a child, you stood up to dad telling him he was wrong even when you knew what he would do to you. I witnessed it so many times that it is undeniable. I tried to help you to not confront him but you weren’t the meek person that I was. I never ever confronted him and I have paid the price my whole life. Stop paying the price with Jerry. Please get out now. Don’t think about your new kitchen as yours. The way it came out, it isn’t yours anyway. Maybe you were told to remodel the house by God to get a better price when it is sold.

You believe in the truth and that there is help available to you from the spirit world. It is guiding me right now to help you. My healing is in my words. Please listen.

jackie

Robin Wrote

Wow. A lot of anger there. That’s what I felt as I read this. It scared me. You keep saying I’m ‘brave’. I wish you would stop saying that. It’s obvious that you have no idea what goes on in my head. I’m not brave so much as I’m CRAZY!!!!! This is why I’m here to learn my own lessons and not to be ‘teaching’ other people theirs. I’m a nut-case. You have to know this by now. Your experiences with me ought to have clued you into this by now. If not, then where have you been?

Do you think that maybe one of the things I have to do in this life is to work with Jerry and him to work with me? It looks messy to you but there’s something between us that looks like it may be starting to unfold. One of the reasons he acts so crazy is because I AM CRAZY!!! I can drive anyone to distraction – even you. Imagine living with me 24/7. Remember how I wanted to move with you into a duplex but you would have none of it? Ask yourself – WHY?

I told him that if there was one more episode of screaming that I would separate (not divorce) and go to Watsonville. I’m doing EMDR and this has gotten me to the point where I have nothing to lose but to tell him point blank what I need and want from him, I FINALLY told him what’s been on my heart and what I’ve known I needed from him for many many years. From childhood I learned NEVER to ask for anything from anyone! Asking for things only got me into deep deep trouble. So it’s only because I had nothing left to loose that made me willing to ask this of him.

When I’m being scatterbrained and unfocused (and I know this isn’t just because I’m with him) I need him to gently take hold of my arms, look me in the face and calmly tell me what he needs and wants from me. We’ve done this 3 out of a potential 5 times so far and every time it seems to work like a charm with me. And he’s in it with me. I start the ball rolling but he’s willing to take up the reigns with me. I wrote my heart out on a page and both of us have been reading it every day since I wrote it. It’s a new way to behave and that involves changing a habit which can be difficult. But reading what I wrote daily is serving to keep this new way forefront in our minds.

I’m not sure you know this – or believe it – but I live a very very lonely life here on this planet. But – I’m crazy – and it alienates people from me. I drank buckets to try to deal with this horrible aloneness and insanity between my ears. Then I got dropped into AA by a vision from God who showed me my future if I kept on doing what I was doing with the booze. But after a short while AA couldn’t handle me anymore. And I couldn’t be helped by them. Humans don’t have enough power to help me. By the time I was 2 years sober Jeanne had had it with me and left. Then God came back to me (and I know you know this story already) through Jesus who visited me in the flesh and who gave me the Holy Spirit (who I felt entering through the top of my head) to be my forever friend. God helped me with the loneliness by giving me a forever friend. Now, because I’m one with the heavens, I never have to feel that horrible endless loneliness I once had. My life is in the heavens not here on earth. Earth can’t take me – I’m TOO CRAZY for earthlings. I’m not fit for humans to handle. My purpose is a lonely one. To learn my own lessons. God comes by and talks to me here and there and it helps with the detangling . And I always have the H.S. to talk to through this earthly trip. I don’t know what I have to learn but God has done some straightening out in me in more than several ways. I need A LOT of straightening out. It’s like East L.A. in this head. Jackie, I was drinking QUARTS of HARD LIQUOR. QUARTS AND QUARTS OF IT and my head would still not shut down. I was given EMDR again through someone’s suggestion. This time for relationships, and I think it might be helping me get to a jumping off point with Jerry’s and my relationship.

How do you know I didn’t dissociate while I was with you? On the outside I look fine (?) But that does not belie what’s going on on the inside. Do you ever find yourself going into auto-pilot fantasy mode?

After this, if I have driven you to distraction (which it sounds like is happening). Maybe you better just drop me from your register. I’ll be ok. I always have the H.S. – my forever friend.

I’ve been free of flour/sugar products for over two years and cigarettes for over one and a half years and I haven’t lost any weight at all. It’s been very discouraging to say the least but I think the tide is finally turning regarding the weight. I think God finally had enough of my wining and stepped in to give me a little advice.

I had a spiritual experience a couple of weeks ago about losing this weight. It went something like this.

God: You know how to lose this weight dear.Me: How?God: You know how.Me: No I don’t.God: Yes you do. You’ve done it two times before in the exact same way with complete success.

EXERCISE !Twenty minutes a day.

God: You did it one time just before you moved to Santa Cruz. And one time while you were in Weight Watchers. It worked like a charm back then and there’s no reason why it won’t work again this time. So… if you really do want to lose this weight… why don’t you…

Get back on the ball.

Well I’ve been doing cardio-exercise (which is what I did before) on the elliptical machine twenty minutes a day since then.

I know I will lose the weight this way. God is right. If I want to lose the weight, I have to exercise. I’ve experienced losing the weight this way two times before. I really do want to lose the weight. Enough so that I don’t have any resentment about doing the exercise anymore. I used to have a big resentment at doing even ten minutes. I’ve always talked myself into this resentment by wining things like…

How come I have to exercise to lose weight and everyone else doesn’t.

But when God talked to me that day, I knew instantly what a load of crap that was. He put on my heart the reality that just about everyone who has a slim figure has to exercise… the same as I would if I wanted a slim figure too. Suddenly, doing twenty minutes a day on the elliptical is a piece of cake. Not only did He give me the information I needed to loose the weight, but He took all my resentment about doing the exercise, away too!

No… really… It was a dark and stormy night. I was six years sober at the time. SIX YEARS SOBER AND I STILL HAD THE OBSESSION TO DRINK! YIKES!

Don’t ask my how I could have pulled that off. How can a drunk, who is drooling for a drink, not drink… for six years. Fear. That’s all I can say. Plain fear. Unadulterated fear. I’d had a vision of my life if I’d continued down the drinking path, and it wasn’t pretty. It was a horror movie. God showed me my future in living color six years before that, and I couldn’t deny the truth of that future if I continued to drink the way I was doing. And I couldn’t stop the drinking the way I was doing it. So I dragged myself to A.A. and they got me sober.

The idea is to jump, for all your worth, from the one group (Smokers) into the other group (Non-Smokers). You need to do this deeply so that both feet are firmly planted into the Non-Smoking group of people.

What if you’re a Christian… and you have Attachment Disorder… what do you do… with God?

I’ve been in Alcoholics Anonymous a very very long time and I have a lot of time without alcohol. I’ve tried to follow the ‘program’ for all I’ve been worth but have been a miserable failure at it. The only thing I’ve managed to do… by hook and by crook…sometimes by the skin of my teeth… is to not drink.

Until a person recovers from the shock of being physically traumatized, they have absolutely no capacity to either give or receive love. The trauma forces all their faculties to focus inward to deal with the trauma and so they can not be reached. I believe this same understanding can be applied to the shock of psychological trauma as well. All the faculties are focused inward trying to deal with the trauma. This is what I know from my own experience anyway.
—

Well I’ve tried the ‘self-soothing’ thing many times before, and for many years. People have told me of it’s importance more than a few times in my life. But it never really took. Not really. I wanted to do it. It sounded like a great idea. But I only was able to do it by rote – robotic like. Needless to say, it didn’t help anything.

I woke up very early this morning. Dread from the trauma memory weighed heavy on my heart. “What to do with all this new information? How am going to get out from under all this trauma as an infant? How am I going to deal with this? How?”

On Saturday I tried to go to a party. My ‘friend’ roped me in by asking me if I could help her out with plates, utensils, etc. She was so insistent that I couldn’t say no to her. So I went.

I hate parties and here’s the reason why. They cement the knowledge I carry inside, that no body likes me. No body. One more time, I wound up sitting all alone by myself. Everyone was grouped up and I was sitting alone.

About the attachment disorder thing. I was thinking on the way home about what I know about it from the inside. This is what came up.

From my experience with it on the inside, people with this disorder are absolutely, positively, 100% convinced that no living thing would give a single wit if they died. Their very deaths would have absolutely no impact on anyone. They believe they have as much value as animal road-kill, that the people around them would go on as if nothing happened. Therefore, this becomes the imperative – they must take care of themselves! They live this way because they think their very lives depend on it. This belief probably started from infancy in the crib when their minds were soft and their cries were left unanswered, or worse – met with violence. They hardened inside to survive and these convictions became ingrained in steel.

I continue on in my quest as an addict into the world of no addictions.

It’s been officially a year now since I put the sugar down; six months since the cigarettes. I’m digging deep into my psyche. It started out with curiosity. I’ve been desperate to know… “Through practicing all these addictions, what the heck have I been running away from so hard?” Now it’s come to take on a life of it’s own. Here’s where I now.

About a month ago, I gave out. I ran out of steam as they say. I began to have the sensation that I was walking through a very dry desert all by myself… and I didn’t care; didn’t give a lick about anything. I lost my “TRY”.

Up to the age of 27, I had never encountered what people call… Love. My parents didn’t know about it, nor could they recognize it either. In fact, they came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as Love. There was no Love in my childhood and when I became an adult, I was savage enough that, even if I did happen to come across it, I wouldn’t have recognized it if it had come and kissed me on the cheek. I ran away from any kind of closeness others might have wanted with me. By the time I was adult age, the only feeling I had for others was… fear… even terror.

As most of you who read this blog know by now, I am in the process of releasing all my addictions and obsessions. If anyone here wants to take a stab at doing this, I believe that a firm hold on sobriety is necessary first before making this attempt. I don’t think it’s for those who are still unsteady on their feet from recently having let go of their primary addiction. For me, it’s been 34 years of only alcohol abstinence; ‘Easy Does It’… ‘First Things First’… ‘Think it Through’… ‘Live and Let Live’… ‘One Day (or moment) at a Time’… and working the Steps. Please be cautious if trying go the ‘no addiction/obsession’ route while you’re still struggling to stay sober because it can possibly introduce enormous amounts of stress and pain into your life. It took me a very long time to even take a stab at it. I’ve been praying for the strength to take this on for the last 30 years.

I was reading an article called: AA’s Sermon on the Mountwhen these words by Emmett Fox struck home. Many AA people subscribe to this man’s point of view.

In “The Sermon on the Mount“ , Fox writes…

The forgiveness of is the central problem of life.… When you hold resentment against anyone, you are bound to that person by a cosmic link, a real, tough metal chain. You are tied by a cosmic tie to the thing that you hate. The one person perhaps in the whole world whom you most dislike is the very one to whom you are attaching yourself by a hook that is stronger than steel

First of all I want to make this very plain. I do not see myself as a victim any longer. These are just observations I’m using to help me with my recovery. On top of alcoholism, I have experienced copious amounts of child abuse and learned to resent, or hate, myself horribly as a result. Not everyone who is alcoholic has had to endure child abuse to become self-resenters, but I firmly believe that the child-abused alcoholic has a huge potential for self-resentment coming from this. This has not been addressed as a crucial aspect to finding out “The exact nature of our wrongs — or : the exact nature of what’s wrong with me.” (Big Book Step 5; pg 59) However, as for myself, it was from the abuse that this huge amount of self-hatred flowered in me, and sobriety just served to bring the self-hatred closer to the surface – in spades.

Now here’s what I want to say about the above quote.

If I do not forgive myself I can not stop being self-centered. Just like being tied to another through resentment, if I do not let go of my severe self-resentment, I will also be tied to myself “with a hook stronger than steel”. This is not the reason for all us alcoholic’s self-centeredness, but it is the root of my own. Maybe letting go of self-resentment is in the Big Book. If it is, can someone please point it out to me? If it isn’t, might the AA’s founders have missed this important aspect of forgiveness for some of us? I do not know for sure – maybe they didn’t think about it because they didn’t have to struggle with this sort of thing as much as I have struggled with it.

But exactly how do I forgive myself? For me, since the self-hatred stuck to me like Gorilla Glue, it’s been very, very difficult. Firstly, I didn’t even know it was my worst, and most painful, character defect. Secondly, I didn’t know it was ever possible to be relieved of it. But I am here to say that, through the process of relinquishing all addictions or obsessions… IT CAN BE DONE!! Besides a therapist — who I talk to only sparingly — I do not think I’m running to any earthly thing for answers to problems and pains that come my way. To solve these problems and pains, I am doing my utmost to turn only to God. Doing this has propelled me like a bullet toward relinquishing self-hatred and replacing it with self-forgiveness. Since I began not addicting or obsessing, I can no longer afford to hate myself. It is just too painful to continue this behavior. It became imperative that I give it up.

Speaking of the futility and unhappiness in a life which includes deep resentment, the Big Book states (pg: 66)

… with the alcoholic … the business of resentment is infinitely grave…. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit.

Experiencing “the sunlight of the spirit” is also something I believe to be a necessity in order to end self-resentment and thus self-centeredness. I was lucky in this regard. During my 2nd year sober I had an experience which helped me to know deeply this “sunlight of the spirit.” Not drinking resulted in such intense agony that it tore my mind open to being able to see and hear things that were impossible for me to see and hear before…. like a profound sense of the truth of God’s perfect love for me. There’s an AA saying; “Don’t quit 5 minutes before the miracle.” I believe I got my miracle through enduring excruciating pain while getting and staying sober. For me, simply letting go of the booze was painful enough to get this awareness of His love. I didn’t have to go to the extreme of releasing all addictions and obsessions at that point. But for some, releasing all addictions and obsessions might produce what is necessary to pave the way toward getting the miracle… which is to gain a powerful sensation of a deeply loving relationship with their Higher Power.

But lastly, there’s another way one might look at this problem of self-resentment leading to self-centeredness.

Maybe this self-forgiveness – and the sense of having God’s deep, deep love – can be done without resorting to such drastic measures as I have had to do. There could very well be an easier way to get to this place, but I really don’t have an answer to that. I only know that this is what I am doing that’s achieving it. And I didn’t even plan for all this to happen the way it has. This is a story that’s writing itself. I am not the author. All I’m doing is not running to anything but God. Like the Big Book says;

God could and would if He were sought.

I really want to hear what you guy’s thoughts are about this. I feel like I’m just a babe in the woods here. I’m sure there are many avenues that lead to overcoming self-centeredness as well as developing self-forgiveness. I’m just addressing one way of handling them.

About self-hatred. I have an intimate knowledge about this state of being. I’m an expert. I have studied about it extensively. I am my own subject in these studies. I have studied this aspect of the human personality… for decades… and decades.

I’m sorry this is so long, but… it is really a quick read since much of it is a list typed double spaced.

* * *

Exodus 20:2-4

I am the Lord Your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any other Gods but me. You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.

These are the verses I’m totally laser-focused on right now. I an doing my best to live by them. Suddenly I can see their profound meaning for our current times – as clear… as… day. To put it mildly, they are astonishingly miraculous.

Co-dependency is an addiction that I have used in place of my dependence on God. When I relate to people in a co-dependent way, I am shifting my dependence – from God – to other people. I’m using other people’s admiration of me to soothe my ‘introject’, ( see this post:About the Introject ) instead of getting this soothing directly from God Himself. It seems easier to turn to people rather than toward God. Reaching out to things in this physical world is much easier than having to reach toward the spiritual One who’s big enough to fix anything. But it takes more effort to try to reach for the spiritual world, you have to stretch more to make this connection.

I would like to apologize for the length of this post. As I’ve worked on it and worked on it, it’s feeling more and more ~book-length~ I think. I put a lot of effort into it in an attempt to make it as short and concise as possible. If you are a person experiencing life as one long test of endurance, I hope you decide to read the whole thing. My hope is that you’ll find it meaty, innovative, and exceedingly helpful in relieving your emotional pain and existential angst… thoroughly and forever. I mean it: … thoroughly… and… forever.

This ride of ‘no addictions or obsessions’ has suddenly transformed itself. Up until now, I’ve been careening at break-neck speed, through the pitch blackness, on a hairy, frightening, emotional roller coaster; being tossed around like a rag-doll, completely out of control. But suddenly, an abrupt change has occurred. Suddenly I’m finding myself in a place of absolute quiet stillness. It feels like I’m riding on a smooth platform that’s silently and swiftly skimming across the surface of a pale blue, sparkling, glassy sea.

I’ve been sober since January 15th, 1980. I got sober when I was 25 years old and have stayed sober in AA ever since my first meeting. Getting and staying sober wasn’t an easy road for me. In fact, it was very, very difficult to get my sober legs underneath me.

I’ve been reading a book on Theophostic Prayer Ministry. Very interesting. Has anyone else heard about this type of therapy? As I was reading it, I noticed that it resonated with my own story. I have experienced more than several spontaneous (prayer induced) healings in my life that resulted in permanent heart-changing views about; who I was, what life was about, what I could overcome, and many other things.

Once upon a time there was a train. On this train were many passengers coming and going about their business. Some were reading their newspapers; some where furtively ‘people watching’; some were just looking out their windows at the scenery passing by.

I’ve been told I need to get on my knees and pray for God / Jesus/ Holy Spirit to take the wheel of my life. I must let go of all this control! This is a tall order for me being the control-freak that I am.

Well, I’ve done it on several occasions so far and the times I have, I’ve gotten a sense that He is taking the wheel. The food obsession lifts somewhat. I stop gritting my teeth and start breathing again.

But

I’m finding myself in resistance to getting on my knees and asking for help anyway. Why do you think that might be? Any ideas? Any experience with this yourself? It feels like I’m in rebellion against doing it. A sort of; “I don’t want to do this. I don’t like doing this. I was given this life and I want to run it myself.”